Rodents, such as mice and rats, are common pests that can cause significant damage to property and products, and can be disease carriers. Similarly, arthropods, such as insects including roaches and ants, can cause considerable property damage and can also be disease carriers. Rodents and insects can often coexist in the same environment, and many environments having a rodent infestation also have an insect infestation.
Despite the coexistence of rodents and insects, traditional pest control generally involves a separate treatment for attempting to control each pest. When traditional pest control formulations are set out, the types of active ingredients used to control one type of organism are typically different from those that will work for another type of organism. For example, bromadiolone is a common active ingredient for control of rodents, but it has no insecticidal properties. Similarly, pyrethroids are good examples of insecticides that have no rodenticidal performance.
The exclusive nature of these active ingredients can be problematic. For example, rodenticides may be consumed by roaches before rodents have a chance to consume them. In such situations, the roach population increases and there is no impact on the rodent population, so the infestation of both populations can actually become worse than it was prior to the attempted pest control intervention. The converse is also possible. Insect bait systems can attract and increase rodent populations because they are not harmful to rodents, and this results in both insect and rodent pest populations proliferating.
Therefore, a need exists for improved pest control formulations having dual-action properties.